Emptiness

Right about now I am taking in the shock of some realizations that I probably didn’t want to have. well, I know that I did want to know, but now that I know I don’t know what to do about it. I kept telling myself to wake up from this dream of mine, and now that I am awake from it, Reality is harsh for me, and the dream that I was living in prior to now seems like paradise comparably.

what I realized is that everything I’ve lived for until now was an excuse. well, as you know I had already realized this- but it wasn’t until now that the meaning of this realization registered- kind of like when a lover dies, for a while the widow(er) doesn’t accept that they’re dead- then after a week or two the shock wears off, and natural anesthesia gives way to the painful truth.

my first conclusion was that everything I do, I don’t do because it’s right or because I want to, but because its natural. It bugged me though- “why are these things natural for me?”– now I realize, it’s because living my life the way I do was a necessity, to fill up the emptiness within.

Remember when you asked what I thought others thought of me, then when you said that wasn’t the case- and I wasn’t surprised? when you asked why I thought it even if I knew it was wrong, I said “because even if it’s wrong, at least it’s something.”- that pretty much sums up my life- or at the very least, my dream. I don’t know exactly when the dream started, but I know that sometime in my life, who I was died inside of me, and I began dreaming up a fake me, because I didn’t want to accept that, in some way, I was already dead. I wish I could explain it better, but at the very least these are my true feelings.

I tried really hard to establish an identity for myself, taking the opinions of others, and of that which I perceived myself to be– in all likelihood, the me of now is the product of the internet, since for the longest time that was my sole resource in defining myself, other than my own logic. by giving myself an identity, building on myself, embarking on a journey of self-discovery, from the surface I improved, got to know myself, and got to know others– leveraging the resulting passion to start living what I perceived to be a normal life. I had a dream- one that I knew could not be fulfilled, and I loved that dream for that very reason.

But now that I have woken up from that dream, I don’t know what to do. I know what is right, but I can’t find the courage to do it. I’m afraid that, no matter what I do, it will be an excuse. And because I know it is an excuse, my fears are validated.

Depression and anxiety are caused by fear, chaos, and doubt- in this case, I fear myself and doubt myself- the only thing I have left is control- and I fear that even that will slip away. I fear God himself, and I hate myself for it. God has become another excuse to me, and that belief is validated- it is something that I know to be true.

Have you ever felt something to be absolutely true- to the point that there is absolutely no doubt in your mind– and that something cannot be proven true empirically, nor validated logically or emotionally- something that you just know?

I have- and it is something that Aristotle called intuition- transcendental knowledge. So if my fears appear to me to be absolutely true, and fear is not of God but of Satan, that would mean that I’m being influenced by Satan.

Originally I never had such experiences, but the last few months, I have had several such experiences, with them increasing rapidly as time goes on. The way I see it is that, since the first several experiences were positive (to the point that at one point I fancied myself a god) that in accordance with balance, I have had these negative experiences- that I feel to be equally without a doubt, and even stronger. What’s more, I predicted that all of this would occur, several months ago- when then I never imagined such things would actually happen to me. If there were prophets in the Bible that did not want their prophesies to come true but knew they would, I can empathize with them.

For my entire life, my greatest concern was a lack of friends- I remember that part of my life clearly, so I know that this concern has consumed me since the very first day of grade school. I never thought about myself or others- I was only concerned with getting attention, so that I would not feel left out. I got that attention, even if it was not healthy attention, and picked up bad habits because of that. These habits did serve their purpose- even if it was negative attention, or attention given for the wrong reasons, I did get a lot of attention because of it. I stood out from others, and so have been unique my whole life. Once I realized these things, I continued to develop characteristics that set me apart. Eventually I gave up on friends– I had lived without them for so long, that I did not need them- or rather, the need was not worth the effort. After over 10 years of effort, I wondered why I even bothered. By now, I have adapted to the point where friendship is not a necessity- the illusion became enough.

Lacking friends all this time, I had given up on all worth of myself- I found that it was better not to care about myself. Because I don’t care about myself, I can’t be hurt- I can adapt to any situation- I’m psychologically invincible. Seeing it in such a way- living this dream, I could go on, building my passions on it. Even if it was illusion, it was one that I had believed in for so long, that I could go on with such a foundation. Because such a dream was unique, I could forget about my true feelings, and just let my dream sweep me away.

I suppose that I began waking up from my dream when I realized that others were getting hurt by my dream. If their actions were not compatible, I cut them off, deciding that it was for the best- saying that I was the one at fault. It’s very easy to handle it in such a way when you think of yourself as nothing- and so it’s also easy to hurt other people when you cannot respect yourself.

I know what is right, but I cannot do it. I feel guilty, because I know that Bible verse to be true. While most Christians might insist the Bible to be true in its whole, I can tell which ones are really true- that is the gift God has given me. While my emotional intuition is not good, my intellectual intuition- that is something that I can believe in. Though I know not what form, I know God exists, not because of proof or validation of any kind- I just know, from the bottom of my heart. When there is not trace of doubt, there is no need for proof or validation. I finally understand how Christians- no, any believers of God– I can understand now how, what faith truly is- how one can know without a doubt, even though otherwise he might not exist. This must be what it means to experience God.

Even though I might not know that I can move on, I know that God is here, and that he is just waiting for me to open up to him, so that he may impart upon me more wisdom- that which I will also know beyond any doubt to be true.

To be frank: Sometimes I do think suicidal thoughts; but whenever I do, I always cut myself off mentally, because I get this strong ominous feeling, that if I give in to such thoughts for even a moment, that I will lose control of myself, at which point I don’t know what I might do. Thinking about it now, it does feel like “a still, small voice” is warning me- and each time this occurs, I get this sort of shock, like suddenly coming out of a trance. That’s another type of intuition I know myself to have- every once in a while, I feel like I hear or feel a sudden jolt- and for some reason I know that this jolt means that something significant is going to happen.

People around me probably think that because I tend to take an anti-Christian approach, or disagree with fundamentally accepted aspects of God, that I do not experience God, but I know that, having experienced God more than most people, I have all of the reason a person could ever need to believe in God- it’s more like “how could I not believe?”

Because I know certain things about God- and I know this knowledge must come from God, I also know that God is with me, and that I will find my way as long as I believe. Even though I’m very confused right now, I know that God will work things out.

So although I may have failed other’s expectations this time– though I may have lost this battle, through God I will definitely win the war.